


we dream of the places (where we never die)

by sakaamotos



Series: september's children [1]
Category: Persona 5
Genre: Akechi Goro Lives, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Loss of Limbs, M/M, Post-Canon, Self-Harm, akira doesn't struggle with self-harm and reality, and you tell me that after shooting a god in the face, my children have been through some shit, you look me dead in the eyes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-23
Updated: 2019-10-23
Packaged: 2020-12-31 19:04:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21150680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sakaamotos/pseuds/sakaamotos
Summary: Every year, as the death of Goro Akechi comes around, Akira retreats into himself, with only a guitar and the same handful of sad songs. Maybe this year, that can change.





	we dream of the places (where we never die)

**Author's Note:**

> Much love and thanks to my wonderful beta Alien (tsbasasakura here on AO3), because she doesn't even Persona 5 beyond me yelling about it all the damn time at her on Discord. She took these 1800+ words at 1am and made them make sense.
> 
> Other things you can blame this on, is that Rise Against put out an album of nothing but acoustic covers, and I'm a known slut for an acoustic cover, but deer gawd, the cover of Savior hurt me in all my shuake/akeshu feels. So I gave Akira a guitar and some depression, because projection onto fictional characters is definitely a form of self-care.
> 
> Title come from The Violence by Rise Against (which also hella sad when made acoustic.)

It was coming.

The anniversary of his heartbreak.

He turns more and more to the guitar he had bought; his fingers strumming out melancholy tunes, and sad English lyrics falling from his lips. It’s been almost five years, and yet, whenever the day starts to creep close on the calendar, Akira retreats into himself and music. The Thieves learn over the years to leave their once-leader alone when he gets like this. Once, and only once, Sojiro had convinced him to come to the cafe and play there, to see if it would help.

It didn’t.

Akira only ended up in his former bed, sobbing.

But today, Sojiro manages to get him to come back to the cafe, guitar and all. It wasn’t the day of, exactly, just a few days prior, and his former guardian was hoping that maybe, well, maybe it would help some. And so far, so good. There was no crying, but at the same time, Akira wasn’t making eye contact with anyone. If he needs more coffee, he nudges the cup forward. He barely touches the curry that Sojiro had put in front of him about an hour earlier. He just keeps picking away at the guitar, accepting the compliments of the patrons with a strained smile.

But it was progress.

Sojiro would take it.

After his third cup, Sojiro hears Akira start to sing. Until now, he’d been humming along with the guitar. Sojiro had taken it upon himself to learn more English, after it appeared that all the songs Akira sang when he was like this were English. He wanted to try to understand what his once-charge was feeling, so he could at least try to help. The lyrics Sojiro hears are familiar ones; they usually came in the deepest moments of his depression.

“ _ Oh oh oh, one thousand miles away, there's nothing left to say, but so much left that I don't know,”  _ Akira’s voice is soft, pitching perfectly to the tune coming from the guitar. It almost makes Sojiro himself cry from the emotion in it. _ “We never had a choice, this world is too much noise, it takes me under, it takes me under once again.”  _ The lyrics give way to the beat again, and the door to the cafe opens and closes. Sojiro steps out of the kitchen to greet his new customer and counts himself lucky that he didn’t drop dead right there. His eyes sure bug out of his head, though.

Because it’s Goro Akechi.

Alive.

Akira keeps right on playing though, unaware.

“ _ I don't hate you, I don't hate you, no. _ ” 

Akechi must’ve known the lyrics, Sojiro thinks, distant from his own body, because he joins in harmony with Akira, as he sang those lyrics. 

And that gets Akira to stop and look up.

“I don’t hate you. I never did. Mona was right.” The cafe goes silent, Akira’s hands still for the first time in probably days, and Goro comes a little closer. Sojiro is now noticing that he walks with a cane, favoring the leg opposite it. “I know, I shouldn’t have done this, and in truth, I don’t have a right to even be here right now, but I owe you so much, and an apology is the least of that.” 

Akira doesn’t move.

Sojiro was actually starting to think that maybe they were both seeing ghosts.

But then, Akira speaks.

“You’re alive?” And the hope in his voice, so careful and afraid —that right there— that makes Sojiro’s heart break for the boy in front of him.

“Barely, for a while. Sae found me, I… I wasn’t expected to make it. Gave up my leg to do so.” Goro taps his cane against his leg, and the sound of metal and plastic reverberates back. “I wanted Sae to tell you that I was alive, but she kept counseling me against it, saying that you had your own problems.” Goro looks down, but Sojiro could see the tight smile on his face still. “She never really trusted me, not after all I did. She probably thought she was keeping you safe from me.” Akira snorts at that, a soft noise that was barely heard.

“I still kissed you when you were planning to shoot me back then.” And that  _ does  _ make Sojiro’s eyes bug out of his head. “You did tell Sae that she was running a fool’s errand, right?” Goro laughs, and suddenly, the tension that had been holding the room hostage starts to dispel.

“Not sure she would’ve appreciated it. She was trying to keep me alive to shove me into jail.” And for the first time all day, Akira’s hands loosen from their hold on the guitar, and for a second, Sojiro fears that it’s going to fall to the ground and shatter.

“Jail? What?” Goro nods, and Akira puts his guitar down on the bar, turning in his chair to face Goro properly. “You were on your deathbed, and she was worried about putting you in jail?” 

“Sae is nothing if not dedicated to justice.” Sojiro notes that Akira’s hands are tightening into fists, where they rest on his legs, and belatedly wonders if he has clipped his nails as of late. Right after his return from Juvie, he had taken to digging his nails into his palms and making himself bleed. He had said it was an accident, but it happened too often for a while for Sojiro to believe that.

“Dedicated or not, that’s still absolutely ridiculous!” Goro only shrugs.

“I did kill people and attempt to kill you. She had plenty of reason to want me there.” And that, that makes Akira explode.

“You were manipulated!” Sojiro takes a step back from the force and anger in Akira’s voice. The boy almost never yells, so this is, in truth, a rare sight. “Shido  _ used  _ you! He said as much in his testimony! And then, there was that fucking wannabe God! He was pulling all of our strings, but fuck! He was using you like a damn marionette!” While he yells, Akira’s hands fly around, accentuating his points, but they stop when Goro grabs him by the wrists and turns his hands palm side up. 

“Akira, what is this?” Sojiro takes a chance to look over the counter, and sure enough, there’s blood.

“It’s nothing.” He tugs on his wrists, but Goro’s grip doesn’t slacken.

“Akira, your whole hand is scarred. What. Is. This?” The tension is back, and lord, Sojiro doesn’t think he owns a knife sharp enough to cut it.

“I… After I got put in Juvie to testify against Shido, I wasn’t sure what was real for a while.” Sojiro sucks in a breath; this was more than he had even gotten out of Akira back then. “When I thought I was in a dream, I would dig my nails into my palm. Pain made me realize this was reality.” Goro drops Akira’s wrist, but only to pull him off of the stool he was sitting on and into a hug.

“Akira, fuck, why did you never tell anyone?” And just like that, the dam breaks. Five years worth of pain and self-doubt come flooding up, and Akira starts to sob into Goro’s shoulder, his hands gripping the back of Goro’s coat like a lifeline. 

Again, distantly, Sojiro worries about the blood on Akira’s hands and it getting onto Goro’s coat, but it doesn’t really matter as he comes around the bar to help comfort his former charge. It feels like an eternity that they stand there, Goro holding onto Akira and Sojiro rubbing circles into his back, but eventually, Akira’s sobs turn to shudders, and eventually taper off completely. But he doesn’t let go of Goro, nor does Goro let go of him.

“Some reunion we’re having.” Akira’s words are muffled by his face still being buried in Goro’s shoulder, but Goro hears them and chuckles softly.

“The fact that we’re having one at all is enough for me.” That gets Akira to laugh and finally pull his face out of Goro’s shoulder.

“Yeah, you’re right.” One of Akira’s hands lets go of Goro’s coat and comes up to brush his hair back behind his ear. “I never thought we would have this.” And well, Sojiro has seen where this story goes a million and one times now, so he steps back.

And just in time.

Akira leans forward, his free hand cupped around the back of Goro’s head, and brings their lips together.

If he listens hard enough, Sojiro swears he can hear Futaba screaming from two streets away.

The kiss doesn’t last long, but it doesn’t take a genius to realize the amount of feelings that went into it. There are five years and untold amounts of pain between the pair of them, and while neither of them are foolish enough to think that only one kiss can undo any of that, they won’t deny that it feels like the best start.

“You know,” Akira starts, while the hand on the back of Goro’s head plays with his hair. “I remember how to make your favorite coffee.” Neither of them are paying enough attention to anything else, to see that Sojiro is rolling his eyes at them.

“Oh yeah? Is this you offering to make me a cup?” Akira leans in for another kiss.

“Maybe,” he says, his words brushing over Goro’s lips like air. “You willing to stick around for it?” Goro closes the space between them, and Sojiro once again swears he can hear Futaba yelling.

“Probably should.” Goro says, once they broke apart, chests only slightly heaving from the lack of oxygen. “You’ve probably gotten rusty. It would be rude to subject others to your skills without testing them myself first.” 

And that gets Akira to laugh.

Not the sad, half laughs that he’d been doing in the years since the Metaverse and his stint in Juvie, but a truly deep and full laugh; the kind that made Goro fall in love with him in the first place, all those years ago. And Sojiro will deny to his last that he shed a tear at hearing it again.

“Oh, don’t worry honey, I’ve stayed on top of my coffee game.” Akira starts to shuffle Goro towards a stool, being careful to not move faster than his prosthetic. “Now, you take a seat, and enjoy the show.”

Sojiro shuffles himself towards the kitchen, leaving Akira at the bar, but he ends up taking a moment to watch them. Goro doesn’t take a seat, but instead, starts pushing Akira towards the bathroom, telling him that they need to clean up his hands before he can even think of making coffee for anyone. And Akira doesn’t even try to put a fight like has in the past. He just lets Goro move him around.

Sojiro throws a wet towel at them as they pass, and Goro catches it with ease, mouthing a thank you. He turns to the kitchen proper, with plans in mind to put together a plate of curry for their unexpected guest. But then he hears Akira laugh again, and Sojiro smiles and thinks that, for today, though, this is a good start.

**Author's Note:**

> find me on twitter @ twinskelletons or on tumblr @ sakaamotos


End file.
